The city resembles a jungle in principle. There is the shrub layer, consisting of millions of 1-3 story buildings, then there is the canopy made of 4-12 story buildings and the emergent layer, towering high above the rest, represented by skyscrapers.

The phenomenon of the so-called “endless city” could be one of the most significant developments – and problems – in the way people live and economies grow in the next 50 years, says UN-Habitat, the agency for human settlements, which identifies the trend of developing mega-regions in its biannual State of World Cities report. The largest of these, says the report – launched today at the World Urban Forum in Rio de Janeiro – is the Hong Kong-Shenhzen-Guangzhou region in China, home to about 120 million people. Other mega-regions have formed in Japan and Brazil and are developing in India, west Africa and elsewhere.

Tuesday, 30 March, 2010

Specialised “heater bees” do far more than merely keep a beehive warm. By varying temperatures in different sections of the hive, particularly where the pupae are stored, they determine the roll various bees will have in the colony as adults.

The scientists discovered that the heater bees work to subtly change the temperature of each developing pupae by around a degree and this small change determines what kind of honey bee it will become. Those kept at 35 degrees [Celsius] turn into the intelligent forager bees that leave the nest in search of nectar and pollen. Those kept at 34 degrees [Celsius] emerge as “house keeper” bees that never leave the nest, conducting chores such as feeding the larvae and cleaning the nest.

At a guess, I’d say the Tim Minchin painting was about 40 cm high by 30 cm wide, while “Proposal for landscaped cosmos” was about 30 cm square.

Small is beautiful though, Leach has collected a total of $75,000 in prize money, $50,000 for the Archibald, and $25,000 for the Wynne. He hopes his winnings “will give him time to concentrate on his artistic [rather than commercial] endeavours”.

Here’s my digital diet. I was surprised how long the list ended up being… I’d previously had the vague notion I use maybe “five or six” apps, etc, a day.

Laptop PC

WordPress

Twitter (login then often forget it’s open)

Facebook (once a day to check for messages, event invites)

Flickr

Statcounter

Remember The Milk (task/to-do list)

Mobile phone

WordPad (simple, effective, no fuss, does the job)

Firefox

Chrome

Thunderbird

iTunes

Bloglines (yep, luddite)

Photoshop

Pentax Optio camera

MyPhpAdmin (not quite daily but I should use it more often)

CuteFTP

Quattro Pro (spreadsheet, yep, luddite)

Since I can be moving around a little, I try to keep the setup as simple as possible.

I also outsource most printing jobs, which I try to keep to a minimum anyway, to local net cafes. This means I can usually go without a printer, and makes for a great way to save paper, as I have to think twice about whether I really need a hardcopy of something.